or What Chipotle and the Dali Lama have in common.(hint: They are able to touch and transform a lot of people)

Lately I’ve been spending quite a bit of time thinking about gifting and inviting abundance into my life. I’ve also been very focused on personal transformation. I’ve done breath work, dream analysis, meditation, et cetera. I’m following this path because I can feel and see changes happening in my life and in the lives of those around me and its powerful stuff.

But much of the change that I’ve seen is localized or only affects a certain sector of the population that can afford it. While I see the consciousness of the business world shifting through my friends’ businesses at SVN I wasn’t seeing much mainstream or popularized that really grabbed our transforming planet by the balls and… ok maybe a different metaphor. Not that they weren’t doing enough. They just hadn’t gone off the high dive. I’ve been seeing the change as we live the words of Ghandi, and even some cool new products and businesses, but holy crap Chipotle just did a cannon ball into a pool that’s only had a little splashing.

Chipotle? Making a difference? What am I talking about? I assure you that this is not a joke post. The Boorito is an example of full release action. One that is meant to truly give without expecting.

Let me lead you on my journey, which began many months ago when my husband, a Chipotle addict, started blathering on about something called an Adventurrito, a story that goes something like this… Once upon a time Chipotle wanted to celebrate its 20th birthday so it decided to have a contest. While it may have seemed to be a thinly veiled ploy at getting its customers to answer 20 days worth of Chipotle trivia with prizes like burritos forever (ok it was probably not quite like that) many ( I can’t find the number other than more than 300,000) joined in the game. A what a grand game it was. I know because my game loving husband gave me a play by play. Through it all he actually learned something about where food comes from. In the end he came to love Chipotle more. (Cue heart touching music.)

This is going to come to be know as the thing marketing people dread – company x shows up and wants what Chipotle did for the change they scraped out of their car. It happens now when people ask programmers for a site that works like Google for $500. Can you do it? No. No, you can’t, and here’s why.

What’s’ behind this series of events is sheer brilliance. Brilliance in the methods and the madness. I’m not even going to comment on the video announcing the Scarecrow game; although I will tell you it is on my phone (and I might be tempted to put in my two cents later. But this brilliance is not something you can buy, you have to live it and you have to mean it, otherwise it won’t work that same way for you as it did for them. You can’t copy innovation and expect the same results, you have to innovate. But more now on why and how it worked…

Let’s look for example at yesterday’s Boorito. Get your customers to dress up crazy and show up at your door. How do you get them to do it? Why not give them nearly half off a burrito. What? That’s crazy! Ok, we’ll just donate up to $1,000,000 of the money they do pay to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. A full release. No question that this was a gift to the charity and a gift to the public. And while one could surmise that people would respond favorably (I’m sure the CEO did that math on the max they’d donate and spend on this stunt before giving the go-ahead so you know it won’t put them out of business) there is NO guarantee that it would generate more future paying business. But it will. Because people can hear the truth when it is spoken. You can see pure action when it is taken. And they like to have fun… Boo!

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Congratulations Chipotle, but more importantly thank you for shining your light brighter and giving us the go ahead to do so ourselves. Or really Urpichay Sonccochay, as the quechua would say, ‘a dove from my heart.’ I say this because we all share the vital life force that comes through us from Mother Nature and Chipotle’s actions will help millions along the path to transformation.

And to finish, ponder:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

P.S. SVN is doing and Indiegogo campaign for the next 7 days to make entry into their events more diverse and accessible for women and entrepreneurs of color. Why not go support that?